This is a live recording from a concert centred on the
music of Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber, two XX Century Americans who shared
more in their lives and style than is apparent at first glance.

The program opens with Copland’s Quiet City, soft slow music with
bright accents. A careful balance is struck between the energizing trumpet,
which soars above the gleaming strings, and the English horn, which emphasizes
the pastoral and the serene. The episodes change the mood to slightly more
disturbed, slightly more solemn, or slightly more lyrical, but always slightly,
and the overall disposition stays relaxed and meditative. The present performance
is actually quite active and not too “Afternoon-of-the-Fawnish”: the landscape
it paints is quiet, but still a city. The two soloists
play with clarity and expressivity; they are acoustically separated from
the strings. The trumpet is smooth and firm.Knoxville, Summer of 1915 is Barber’s little masterpiece, a child’s
vision, personal and sincere. This is a lyric rhapsody with a perfect union
of words and music. The fragment by James Agee raises a memory from the
author’s childhood, of a tranquil summer evening in the American South.
The scenes and thoughts follow as if in a dream, the narration progresses
from smallest things to cosmic heights, and the music is full of love, nostalgia,
and delicate sadness. The rocking lullaby-style refrain - it depicts veranda
rocking chairs, maybe? - frames episodes of greater agitation or serenity.
The soprano soloist is April Fredrick; she has a beautiful voice, shining
and round, celestial on the high notes and rich on the low ones. It does
not lean to either the dry or the watery sides, and has certain mezzo qualities.
This creamy timbre and velvety strength reminded me of Dame Janet Baker.
The orchestral support is sensitive, the tempi are well chosen, and the
solo instruments are beautifully phrased.

Barber’s Capricorn Concerto is a modern concerto grosso.
Like Bach’s Second Brandenburg, it is scored for flute, oboe, trumpet
and strings. The music is tonal yet advanced, and is close to Stravinsky
- as in his Dumbarton Oaks Concerto. The main content of the first
movement is a vigorous, rhythmic run. It is interrupted by a dark and “meowing”
episode, and then stops once more for a short plea-like monologue, before
the running resumes. This sprinting is a little comical, but its humor is
satirical, not happy. The middle movement is a jumpy Scherzo with a slight
Chinese zest - like the Ping-Pang-Pong music from Puccini’s Turandot.
The attitude is not comic anymore, but hostile, almost scornful. The rhythmical
progress is broken again by a contrasting short and introspective Trio of
pastoral character. The finale is reminiscent of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella:
20th century music clad in 18th century sonorities.
The music is lively and cheerful, a busy neo-Classical Allegro
dominated by the bright trumpet. Again we have a moment of quiet reflection
before the vivacious ending. The performance of the concerto is light and
stylish. The three soloists maintain a good balance. This is one of works
that one can enjoy, but I can hardly believe it can be candidly loved: it
is more cerebral than emotional, entertaining but not for frequent listening.

Copland, unlike Barber, was not a songwriter and was not as comfortable
with the human voice. His 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson are the only
songs that he wrote in his mature period. Something in these texts by one
of America’s greatest poets apparently touched him, for he worked hard on
them for almost a year. Dickinson’s texts are eccentric and untamed, even
wild at times, very unconventional especially for the years of their creation
– and so is Copland’s music, as if trying to visualize for the listener
all these bursts of punctuation, torn phrases and zigzagging thought. Much
later the composer orchestrated eight of the songs. The orchestration is
sparse and chamber-style, with bird-like winds and perky brass. Copland’s
setting is rough and angled, so a more dry and “modern” voice could suit
it as well, but April Fredrick makes it less Copland and more Dickinson,
more poetic, mystic and feminine. Her singing is so humane and vulnerable,
that these modern songs become really accessible, as if continuing the expressionistic
tradition. At times I was reminded of Elgar’s Sea Songs, an unexpected
parallel.

Ending an all-Copland-slash-Barber program with Gershwin’s evergreen Summertime
might seem strange, but since the program was recorded in a live concert,
this is a dessert-like encore. Fredrick’s voice is as full as ever, but
starts to show strain, probably due to the two demanding works that preceded
it, and overall I feel an excess of pressure. There are magical moments,
but the overall result is not so lullabyish.

The entire program is like a journey from Beauty to the Beast and back:
very suitable for a concert, as it provides enough diversity. Though it
was recorded live, the disc has real studio quality, and the audience is
completely inaudible. It illuminates unexpected parallels between two such
dissimilar composers as Barber and Copland; I understand that the sets of
their admirers do not fully intersect, but even if you do not belong to
both, this disc is well worth hearing for April Fredrick’s beautiful voice.Oleg Ledeniov

Between the Beauty and the Beast; illuminates unexpected parallels between
two such dissimilar composers.